


Creature and the Fool

by clingylefou (dearcst)



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beast!Gaston, Canonical Character Death, Creature!Gaston, Don't worry it gets better, Eventual Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Gaston Redemption Arc, Heavy pining, Little bit of angst, M/M, Pining!Lefou, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-10-18 16:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10620708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearcst/pseuds/clingylefou
Summary: This is the tale how of a man, too vain to know kindness, was turned into a hideous beast, doomed to waste away until he is rescued by a lover to show him and guide him into a better character.Undoubtedly, this all sounds a bit familiar, and that’s because it is. When the Enchantress lifted the curse on the Beast, turning him back into a prince, the castle resumed its original position, the teacups and the clocks turned human, everything returned to how it should be- except for one thing. The lifting spell rebounded upon hitting the ugliness of a man underneath the rubble, and in a side effect of saving his life, turned him into a grotesque creature.It is an obvious story, for it has happened before. We all know the ending. But the ending isn’t important. When someone jumps to their death, the landing isn’t what is important. Landing is inevitable and uninteresting. It’s the falling we all care about.In Gaston’s case, it’s falling in love, truly falling, for the first time.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Are you guys READY for this???? I've been contemplating this for FOREVER and it's FINALLY TIMEEEE *drum roll*.... Alright, so I'm going to try my very very best to update once a week on Fridays, but I might fall short a bit because I'm in school and graduation is coming up. I'm not sure how long this is going to be, I'm just writing until it's done, but I hope it'll be a bit lengthy! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!! On tumblr I'm cinqerella <3

The forest grows tall enough that the sky hides behind the branches of trees. The deeper you go, the more light starts to run away from you. It had a magical feel to it. A lively feel to it. For this reason, Lefou regards this memory, at first, as a dream.

 

Lefou hasn’t an idea why he was in the forest the first day. It was almost two months after Gaston died. It was also almost two months since Lefou felt right. For too long Lefou had dwelled on Gaston’s memory and lack of presence. He felt it like a vice on his heart. His days were heavier, his breath was colder, his thoughts were weaker. So perhaps the answer lies there: he went for a walk to clear his mind, to forget things, remember others, and delude himself into believing an alternate reality where he didn’t lose his best friend.

 

The townspeople had scattered opinions of Gaston. Some people believe his death was justified. Some people, not so much. But unanimously people agree that something went wrong. The Gaston that tried to commit murder, the Gaston that betrayed Lefou, the Gaston that died—wasn’t the Gaston any of them knew. The Gaston they knew was amicable and courteous in a rash way. Confident. Strong-willed. Brave. The Gaston they knew saved their lives countless times.

 

But Gaston in any form was gone. After the battle with the Beast, the people within the castle returned to their true form. The castle rebuilt itself to original standards. And underneath where it was said Gaston landed- there was nothing there.

 

Some say it’s better not knowing, but Lefou can’t live without closure. Did Gaston get away? Was his falling to death nothing but a rumor? Could he still be alive somewhere? Lefou ran through every possible scenario in his head. He fantasized of the day Gaston would walk down the streets of Villeneuve once more as if nothing had happened. But after so many minutes, hours, days, weeks of hearing everyone else talk among themselves in whispers and in yells and shouts, Lefou couldn’t deny it anymore. He accepted what everyone else was preaching: Gaston is dead.

 

The story reveals itself to be most interesting in this moment: Lefou is in the forest. His feet crush leaves and snap twigs. There are birds and there are deer and squirrels, but Lefou can’t pay attention to anything except his erratic thoughts. He walks for what seems like days, but the sun hasn’t yet set. The branches of the trees wave back and forth. They stand tall and they reach far. Lefou feels small in more ways than one, and vaguely wonders if Gaston would feel small here, too, or if he would feel as large as he always does. Gaston had such a presence. It filled the entire room so that it was impossible to breathe. But Lefou was never such a big fan of oxygen, anyway.

 

As he walks further, the trees cover more of the sun in the pretense of a nightlike scene. The animals soon quiet and disappear.

 

Coming upon a clearing, Lefou stops. The trees stand in a circle around him, bowing forwards so that the sun would be centered in the sky. It is not, though. It is near dusk. The sun itches the tops of the trees, giving a golden glow to each leaf and a beautiful complementary color pattern of Prussian blue and yellow ochre. It’s all unperceivably surreal, so much that Lefou believes himself to be in a dream.

 

Which makes what comes next so easy to expect.

 

There: just out of the cloaking shadows from the trees lurks a figure, dark and scaled. It is just larger than the average human, but stands on two legs. Its spine is prominent. Its ribcages, too. It has broken wings. Not broken in the way that is purposeful or malicious, but broken as if the wings were grown with crooked bones. They reach over his shoulders in a crooked, asymmetrical pattern. Lefou stands in the center of the field facing the Creature. The Creature in turned towards the trees opposite of Lefou. It had not yet seen him.

 

The Creature turns with its body, moving its left foot backwards to pivot towards him. Its head gives a sharp movement towards Lefou, and Lefou catches its eye.

 

He is frightened.

 

Lefou turns to run, rushing past the trees. The branches catch on his shirt, grabbing at his hair, hindering his path. Lefou casts a glance backwards, and the Creature is still staring at him, tearing him apart with his eyes. Other than that, the Creature is motionless.  

 

Several emotions battle to be felt. Battle to be the dominant emotion which Lefou would act upon. Upon center stage is fear and fascination. Lefou finds himself consumed with the desire to know more about the Creature, find out what it is and find out what it can do. He wonders its purpose, wonders its origin. But like all faulty humans, Lefou is afraid of what he does not know. So he runs.

 

He runs because he’s scared, because he’s not much for confrontation, because he doesn’t know what to do with what he saw. But it matters very little why he ran, only that he did. He trips over his feet, he throws branches out of his way, he breathes heavily with every lunge forward. The sun falls nearer the horizon. It always seems that the day is too long until it starts creeping away and the night presents itself. Light is only missed when it is absent.

 

He does make it back home, though. He shuts his doors. He locks it. He draws the curtains. With heavy feet on the wooden floor, Lefou walks slowly across the room. He thinks of many things, but concludes that what he had seen was nothing more than a mirage: a representation of his loneliness. He rationalizes and rationalizes and rationalizes in effort to convince himself he had not seen what he did see, but in an unnoticed truth, he was excited for the discovery.

 

His heart thunders to accompany the lightening of his life. For the first time in months, Lefou feels alive. And it is such a curious thing to happen. He is scared of something he does not understand, but he also feels something thrumming in his veins. It moves thick and sticky in his bloodstream. It drags. It’s slow and methodical. He can feel something starting. He can feel. _Feel_. And for that, Lefou is grateful.

 

He wanders to his bedroom. The door is left ajar. Shoes off. Shirt off. Trousers discarded. He falls.

 

Fatigue drops over Lefou like a sheet of water. It drowns him. That morning had been nothing special, and that afternoon had been nothing out of the ordinary. He wonders what agent of fate had directed him to the forest. Blessing or curse alike, Lefou was grateful. It’s a funny thing to think about: a welcome curse. Is that what Gaston was to him? Had Lefou been cursed to try and try to improve Gaston’s crumbling character only to never be acknowledged or appreciated?  Was it for good that Gaston was gone now— Was Lefou set free?

 

The floors creaked. The rustling of bedsheets came to irritate Lefou’s ears. He didn’t like to think like this.

 

Sleep came uneasily. Dreams, increasingly unwelcome.

 

 

* * *

 

  


Lefou wakes up the following day feeling new. Not new in the way where you open up a new pair of shoes, smelling the clean rubber of the soles and the plastic of aglets on the laces; but new in the way where you’ve just cleaned your bedsheets. They are softer. Cleaner. Better.

 

That’s how Lefou feels: better.

 

He fixes breakfast. Undercooked eggs and burnt toast. Everything happens habitually and always had happened this way, even when Gaston was here. The distinguishing difference, though, is that Gaston made his routine more exciting. Eggs tasted better from his plate and juice tasted better from his cup. Lefou feels ridiculous for these thoughts, for still harbouring feelings for someone who left him underneath the harpsichord in the castle and denied his call for help.

 

Everyone else had such an easy time moving on, Lefou thinks to himself quite bitterly. Everyone else is normal again. Everyone else, everyone else, everyone else has such an easy time waking up without _him_.

 

So why can’t Lefou learn from their example?

 

The reality of it is that Lefou still clings to who Gaston _used_ to be. He chases the memory of Gaston bursting through the door and wrapping Lefou in a firm embrace. He dreams of the past where they fought together, bled together, when Gaston saved Lefou’s life more times than Lefou can count. More times than there are stars in the sky. Gaston was a hero.

 

And that’s where Lefou hates himself. Gaston _was_ a hero: past tense.

 

Something broke inside Gaston when he met Belle. The bravery that went towards protecting the village from outsiders turned into malice intent, turned into something ugly. And it seemed with each passing breath, Gaston grew more and more grotesque. With each rejection, Gaston became a monster.

 

Lefou knows all of this, and yet he can't allow himself to hate Gaston. He loves Gaston for who he was and is blind in respect of who he became. Something naive inside Lefou still believes if Gaston were alive Lefou could help him somehow, teach him to handle anger and rejection and hurt. Is that naivety? Is it optimism?

 

Lefou drops his plate in the sink. It clatters loudly. He clenches his fists.

 

He breathes in. He breathes out.

 

And then he turns around, and leaves. The plate in the sink, not yet washed clean, bids him goodbye.

  


* * *

 

 

 

It is two days later that this story continues in narrative.

 

Lefou goes to the tavern every day at noon. It’s part of his routine.

 

He pushes the door open and is assaulted by laughter, voices, and amicable shouting. Disassociated, he stands in the doorway for a few moments. He feels as if he doesn’t belong. Everyone else is beside one they love, one they cherish, one they know. Lefou knows no one—Well, that is not actually true. He knows everyone’s names and knows what each person likes to do and doesn’t like to do, but he feels as if every relationship is superficial. They are all somehow living in the shadow of a dead man. Despite all of this, Lefou makes his way inside the tavern same as any day.

 

He finds Tom, Dick, and Stanley chatting and cheering, and sits down among them. They’re seated in a far corner of the tavern, and Lefou has to push past several crowds of people. Lefou is able to smile easily, and it isn’t exactly fake. The atmosphere does cheer Lefou up. It isn’t as if every moment of his life is now miserable. As if color turned black-and-white. No, there are still some things Lefou enjoys albeit lackluster. Instead, an accurate comparison would be that the color became less saturated, and every thought was a re-run of the previous episodes rather than airing any new ones.

 

The music is good, though. Lefou finds it in himself to shove Gaston further back in his mind long enough to greet his friends.

 

“Lefou!” Dick greets. His tone is cheerful, and the mood is contagious. Lefou grins back at him. “Welcome! Welcome! Here, first drink on us.”

 

Lefou receives the mug of beer. It’s foaming, spilling over the top. Tom and Dick smile widely at each other, eyes glistening with sincere with communication beyond Lefou’s understanding.

 

“What’s the occasion?” Lefou asks from atop his drink.

 

“Hunting!” Tom answers, throwing his hands up in the air. “Stanley caught five rabbits just this morning!”

 

Tom slaps Stanley on the back in congratulations, and Stanley glances downwards with a grand, prideful smile. Everyone gives another cheer. Lefou claps along, heart uplifted and happy, but in the back of his mind he recalls a time when Gaston came back from a hunting trip with eight rabbits. He shakes his head, still smiling and a _congratulations_ on his lips. They all tap their mugs to one another, then drink more.

 

Conversation comes in waves. Lefou laughs and talks amicably. He enjoys their company, their companionship. Tom was strong-willed and had a firm yet lightweight laugh. Dick had the best reasoning skill of the three. Stanley was the sweetest. For moments at a time does Lefou forget Gaston is gone. They say that’s something that happens: humans can’t love nothing at a time. Instead, each gap is filled by something else like peaceful transfer of power. In moments when Lefou has no one to love, he remembers Gaston. It’s what Lefou tells himself: he doesn’t love Gaston. Can’t love Gaston.

 

He can’t be in love with a dead man.

 

“Ah,” Dick sets his mug down. “You surely have heard of the Creature, haven’t you?”

 

Conversation stops, and everyone turns to Lefou earnestly. (The music is still very loud. Lefou is able to hear it more clearly now that there is a lull in conversation. Viols and lutes play vivaciously. People cheer. People clap and chant and sing). Lefou looks at each of them. They are so expectant. Lefou wonders what brought this on, (he has forgotten what caused the change in topic,) but most of all, he wonders what creature they are referring to. A creature can mean many things. A creature can be criminal, a creature can be strange, a creature can be crude. Lefou tries his hardest to find a positive connotation to the word and falls short. Disappointment settles in his heart, and Lefou wonders why.

 

“Creature?”

 

“Like I said,” Dick says. “We were hunting. We followed the rabbit tracks very far. Farther than we usually go. You know. You’ve been with us before.”

 

Lefou nods, and Dick continues, “Well, we came into a part of the forest none of us had ever seen.”

 

“Huge!” Tom interrupts, “Like the trees had fallen and been cleared out.”

 

Stanley hums in affirmation. “It was quite a sight. Quite beautiful.”

 

“And then we saw it—” Dick holds both of his hands up, palms facing away from him as if painting the scene in front of them. “The Creature.”

 

“He had scales—”

 

“ _Wings—_ ”

 

“He was ugly, horrendous, the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

 

Stanley ponders, “He almost looked human. Almost.”

 

Lefou’s heart races. It races in a way he’s never experienced. Was it fear? Why would Lefou be afraid of their words, never proven to be anything but mere rumors? But above everything, Lefou knows why. It’s because he experienced it those few days ago. He tried to say it was only some sort of dream manifested out of the loneliness he felt without Gaston, but hearing Tom, Dick, and Stanley rave about such a creature—Lefou knows it in his soul that such a creature _does_ exist.

 

“Impossible,” he shakes his head, picking up his mug and tipping it backwards. The drink is stale and flat. It feels too solid dripping down his throat.

 

“It’s true!” Tom insists.

 

Then, Stanley, too, nods.

 

“I saw it with my own eyes,” Stanley leans across the table.

 

Conversation falls again. Lefou has a response on his tongue that won’t shake loose. The words hanging in the air trigger memories. He feels suspense, apprehension, and excitement all at once. One part of him wants to jump up and demand that they all go visit this instant—another part drags nails up and down the skin of his back, ripping the spine from his body. He’s far too cowardly to face the Creature again.

 

Stanley speaks to the first part of Lefou: “Why don’t we show you?”

 

Lefou laughs. It comes out rough, shot-like, and static. Eyes downcast, Lefou places his drink back on the tabletop. It’s hardly half-full. The scene around him becomes white noise. He feels such anxiety. For some unplaceable reason, he would give anything not to confront the Creature again. (Oh does he yearn to see it again).

 

But Lefou’s hesitance is not enough to defer the trio. Tom and Dick grab their guns. Stanley finishes off his drink and slams it back on the table, the perfect punctuation mark to their conversation.

 

“Let us go,” Stanley grins, placing a hand on Lefou’s back, guiding him to the door.

 

Stanley pushes him past crowds of drunks, dancing girls, and discarded chairs. The masses of people are but shapeless things. They are akin to dirtied spots on lenses of a pair of eyeglasses. Lefou cannot look past them, but cannot see them. His mind is preoccupied. He battles within himself to shake free of Stanley’s hold and flee— or to run ahead, to lead the way and see the Creature again.

 

Lefou’s feet carry him out of the tavern.

 

The sun blinds him coming out. It is hanging high in the sky so eerily reminiscent of the first time he went for a walk to clear his mind and encountered the Creature. Tom, Dick, and Stanley all make small talk on the way to the forest. They play games, sing songs, toss their guns back and forth. Lefou follows beside them, keeping up pretenses while internally worrying his heartstrings to threads.

 

He wonders why he would want to see the Creature again. The Creature had undoubtedly terrified him. Lefou recalled the spikes along its skin, the scales, the grotesque wings. Had the Creature ever truly done anything, though? If Lefou’s memory serves, the Creature had just seen him, looked at him, and Lefou had been the one to run away.

 

There was a certain energy Lefou could not deny. It pulled him towards the forest as if it were the center of gravity. His heart swelled and shook in its cage at the prospect of going back. Emotions were unable to be defined, though it was undeniable that Lefou was fixated on the Creature. Was it healthy? Did Lefou care about healthy? The Creature was one of the only things to drag his mind away from Gaston these days. Was it ludicrous to imagine befriending it?

 

Lefou gains confidence with each step. He wants to see the Creature. He does.

 

But they come to the unfamiliar part of the forest, and Lefou nearly turns back. He wants to run. He wants to run.

 

He walks forward with the rest of them, the branches of trees hitting his shoulders and getting caught in his hair. The grass is too gentle underneath him, and Lefou feels like a giant. He feels like he’s in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

But the three men continue, and so does Lefou. They walk for a very long time— then the trees grow taller, grow stronger and thicker and more unique. They grow ever more unfamiliar.

 

“I think we’re getting closer,” Dick whispers. Why was he whispering? Was danger so prevalent that they must quiet themselves?

 

The more they walk, the calmer Lefou becomes. The sort of calm that occurs when every emotion has been felt to maximum capacity that there is nothing left to feel but calmness, akin to looking forwards towards what used to be an open door but is now a closed one. Dick is in front of Tom and Stanley, and Lefou behind all three.

 

Dick steps out into the clearing, then the rest of them follow. It feels as mystical as it did the first time.

 

At first, nothing happens. The four of them look at each other questioningly. Stanley shrugs. Tom gestures to the trees with open palms.

 

“Maybe he’ll come back,” Tom suggests.

 

And then, as if on cue, the Creature appears. It steps in from the shadows, into the circle of sunlight the trees create. The scene is marvelous: one creature, grotesque and terrifying, and four boys. The Creature’s face is monstrous with all its scales and fangs and bumps and spikes. Lefou’s gaze is intense and questioning. With each passing breath, Lefou tries to understand what about this thing intrigues him so.

 

The Creature takes a step forward, then opens its mouth and lets out a shrill cry. It waves its wings in a defensive motion, and climbs into one of the trees. It flees from them.

 

“Holy—” Tom staggers backwards. “Let’s leave.”

 

The Creature cries again, more loudly, more insistently. Tom and Dick fall back to the trees, and Stanley hesitates before following. Tom, Dick, and Stanley have left just as Lefou did the first day, but this was their _second_ day; the three of them would forever respond in such a way. The sixth or the fifteenth time would make little difference: Tom, Dick, and Stanley have no eyes for the Creature.

 

Lefou, though, stays still where he is. His chest tightens. His feet are heavy, immobile weights. He can’t bring himself to tear his eyes away. He’s mesmerized. The Creature’s call is too familiar. Its eyes are too reminiscent of an old friend.

 

“Lefou!” Stanley shouts. He’s mid-way back into the forest. “What are you doing? You’ll get hurt!”

 

The warning knocks Lefou out of the trance. He shakes himself, unaware of what caused him to lose himself, only that he would be entirely too eager to lose himself again. But now was not the time, Lefou acknowledges. He stumbles, puts one heel backwards.

 

He catches the Creature’s eye. It is dark-colored and frightening but also _frightened_. Lefou’s breath catches in his throat with the realization. The Creature was more afraid of them than they of the Creature. Lefou presses his lips together in thought. His heart softens. Curiosity tugs at him like never before. He so desperately wants to call out to the Creature, ask its name, ask its dreams, ask if it is able to dream or to speak its name.

 

With a lingering gaze, Lefou turns around and follows Stanley back to the village. Tom and Dick are farther ahead, becoming smaller and smaller in the distance. Stanley, though, waits for Lefou to catch up. His eyes question Lefou, ask things Lefou can’t answer. Because there is no answer. Not one that Lefou can yet understand.

 

“What happened back there?” Stanley asks eventually.

 

Lefou says, “I’m not sure,” entirely honest. He repeats: “I don’t know.”

 

Stanley nods to himself with one quick motion. Lefou expects Stanley to continue, but he doesn’t, and Lefou appreciates the notion. He hardly understands himself, and wouldn’t know what to do with an interrogation.

 

They walk through the forest as the sun sets. Each leaf that falls onto his shirt is accompanied by thought of the Creature, falling upon him more times than often. He thinks of the Creature’s eyes and their lack of malicious intent, shrouded in a thin veil of trepidation and hostility. He thinks of the Creature’s voice and its crackling intensity. He thinks of it, and feels the void in his soul filling steadily like water in a glass.

  
It is only when he is back home, confronted with the messiness of his dining room that he realizes the fullness of the situation. Lefou had seen the Creature again. He has confirmed its existence; moreover, he feels he owes something to the Creature. However he is indebted to the Creature, Lefou cannot place. But he does know that this cannot be the last time they meet. Lefou would find time to go to the forest again. Lefou feels the least bit ridiculous for caring so much about a Creature. But he can’t bring himself to care. Affection knows no sense of sight, and for whatever reason, Lefou feels fond of the Creature. He sees raw need in it.

Lefou walks up to the sink and runs the water. He cleans his plate from breakfast, dries it with a towel, and places it back in the cupboard. He takes a step backwards, and pauses. He doesn’t know why. Oxygen rushes in and out of his lungs. He continues to walk, and turns towards his bedroom. His bed is uncomfortable; it had never been so comfortable, but Lefou never complained when he had such worthwhile reason to wake each morning.

Lefou wonders if there is a timeframe for grief, or if grief is a tyrant, ruling for the foreseeable future.

He falls asleep only to be welcomed by a distinct, familiar voice. It is amicable. It is animalistic. It is much too reminiscent of Gaston.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! :D look at me im on time let's keep this up, updating every friday I can do this lol, ANYWAY
> 
> Yes song inspiration for this chapter is Kiss Me Slowly by Parachute:
> 
> Stay with me  
> Stay with me  
> Tonight don't leave  
> me alone.

_Everything is much too bright. It was distorted, as if Lefou were looking up from the ocean floor: stilted, wavering, and uncertainly visible. Lefou blinks, and looks around. He’s in the clearing of the forest again, but can’t remember how he got there. Unlike the other times, it’s the dead of night. The moon hangs high above him. The night is clear. Stars are above him, scattered as randomly as dandelion seeds in the spring breeze; but not so random that they fall out of a distinct rhythm, unique to what it means to be a night sky._

_Everything is so beautiful that Lefou nearly doesn’t see it: the figure standing in front of him._

_One after another, as if gears of the mind clicking into place, the facial features recognize in Lefou’s mind. With a start, Lefou realizes that it is Gaston. In the flesh. Head to toe, by each hair on his head, it is him. He stands as tall as he always did. He takes up all the space in the atmosphere so that oxygen and carbon dioxide alike are pushed from the nearby air. Lefou can’t breathe. Gaston is standing in front of him, right here, right now. Though, the impossibility of it all is ever prominent. It can’t be happening. Gaston is dead. He can’t be here._

_But he is._

_“Gaston?” Lefou’s voice is far away even to his own ears._

_Gaston doesn’t say anything. He stands there. Looking._

_“Gaston!” Lefou shouts this time. His voice echoes as if he is standing at the start of a stone-walled cave._

_They are alone. They are ants to the environment. To the universe._

_“Gaston, how are you here?” Lefou takes four steps forward, (counts each of them,) until he is in the center of the clearing. Gaston is just outside of the trees. “What are you doing here? How are you alive? How long have you been here for? Why don’t you come home?”_

_Question after question pours from Lefou’s mouth like a drink he never swallowed. His words have the consistency of water, too, and fall from his tongue to his chin to the floor, dripping meaninglessly. That’s all Lefou is anymore: meaningless. Well—that isn’t quite true, of course. But it’s how he feels at some times. Losing Gaston felt like losing an arm. Lefou isn’t sure how to carry on without him._

_But somehow, he isn’t without him. Gaston is right in front of him. Gaston isn’t speaking, hardly seeing. His face is void of any emotion, and he stares vacantly forwards, almost as if he is looking through Lefou rather than at him. It’s a strange and unwelcome emotion that presents itself: the concept that Gaston can’t see him. Maybe he never did._

_Lefou flashes back to the castle. He flashes back to the tavern. He flashes back to the carriage with Maurice._

_The Gaston in front of Lefou can’t see him. The Gaston of the past never did, either._

_Lefou walks forward. He inches. Forward. Step after step, he nears the man that used to be his best friend—_

_For Gaston is no longer here. Gaston isn’t alive anymore._

_And with that shattering realization, the façade breaks down. The trees start to rot and die; the bark rolls off the trunk of the tree, and insects run across the golden-greens of the grass. They crawl over Lefou’s feet, running in the opposite direction of Gaston. Fear clutches at Lefou with every essence of its being, ripping any semblance of tranquility to shreds. He jumps from foot to foot, and with eyes cast to the ground, Lefou starts to see the grass, too, brown and die._

_He looks up frantically as if Gaston would help him somehow. But he doesn’t. He stands there. And then, Gaston turns around._

_He’s starting to walk away._

_And despite how the insects bite at Lefou’s flesh, Lefou can’t bring himself to pay any attention. Instead, one single thought burns through Lefou’s being like a flame consuming dry wood: Gaston is leaving._

_“Gaston, don’t go,” he says. His voice is barely audible as if he himself cannot believe what’s happening. Gaston can’t be leaving. Not again. Lefou collects himself, and then as loud as he’d ever spoken in his life, he yells: “Don’t go!”_

_Gaston can’t hear him. He continues walking away. His figure gets smaller and smaller—but he doesn’t make it to the trees. He collapses. His body folds in on itself. Lefou sees him crumble to the ground, sees his body twist around so that one arm is outreached towards him and the other crushed under his own body. Lefou sees him die. He dies. He dies. He dies. He dies. He die—_

Lefou jolts awake. It’s the middle of the night.

 

It is still the middle of the night.

 

It remains nighttime.

 

For the foreseeable future, so far that Lefou may age and die and be reborn, then age and die again, that the sun would still be living in exile from the sky.

 

It is unnecessary to detail any amount of time that passes as Lefou lies there, for the night is a predator that preys on minutes and hours. It eats time away, consumes it, and is never satisfied until it takes the next day. Night is gluttonous, preying upon fears and hopes and dreams and time itself. It is insatiable. The cycle continues. Lefou lies there and lies there, until the sun comes up again and he can spare a moment to breathe. He breathes methodically, and tries not to think of anything, for if he thought of something it would undoubtedly be of Gaston.  
  
So he lies there. So he waits until the sun rises. So he stands up. So he makes breakfast.  
  
So he does.  
  
  


 

It is undebated what Lefou does with the rest of his day. His legs carry him to the forest, guides him among the trees, and in hours he is standing in the clearing.  
  
It is unsettling to be there, but Lefou could be nowhere else. Silence covers him like a woolen blanket. The day is not hot. It is not cold. It simply is.  
  
For a moment, Lefou expects to see his dream revive itself, expects to see Gaston step from the trees looking no different than he had the day he died: chin held high, jaw set like stone. But none of this happens. Lefou sits down. Time passes. Somehow, there is nothing else Lefou would rather be doing. He finds his mind without bore, his heart without wear, his body without tire.  
  
He thinks of Gaston.  
  
When they met, they were twelve. Both of them had lived in Villeneuve their entire lives, and it is a small town. It is impossible for them to have gone without meeting. In actuality, they knew each other much sooner than twelve. But the sort of meeting Lefou thinks of when he thinks of Gaston—that is what happened at twelve years old. This sort of meeting is not a greeting, but instead a recognition of soul. Lefou, short and silly and soft, looked at Gaston of twelve years old and knew this man would hold his life in his hands. It was not worship. It was not idolatry. It was reverence, admiration, and as true as it can be, it was love. Lefou often believes that Gaston was crafted by God’s hands in clay. He can see the clearness and precision of His hands as they sculpt and move and mold. Halfway through the process, God gets tired. He takes part of the clay out, discards it, and completes the craft as is.  
  
Lefou is that discarded clay. He is utterly and wholly a part of Gaston’s being, and is lost without him.  
  
Gaston had made up much of Lefou’s thoughts before, but Lefou had time for other things. He had hobbies. Lefou liked to cook and to play cards and to fish. And though all of that is still present, it couldn’t add up to the magnitude that was Gaston. It’s like trying to replace a concrete home with some twigs and branches. It can’t be done.  
  
Lefou is thinking all of this when a voice startles him.  
  
“What are you doing here?”

  
The voice is like a boy with limbs too long for his body: distorted and difficult to understand. The inflection is high, but the timbre is low, and the words come out like thick syrup that dripped through a hardly-placed-correctly lid to a bottle. It is a strong voice that carries the force of five, six men instead of one. Lefou’s eyes snap up. He looks for the source, but cannot place location to the voice.  
  
“I’m just…” he falls short. What is he doing here? “I don’t know, honestly.”  
  
There is a pause. So lengthy a pause that Lefou almost believes the voice to have gone. But it returns as intense as it is cautious.   
  
“You’ve been here before.”  
  
“I have.”  
  
More silence.  
  
At last, the voice says, “Why?”  
  
Lefou ponders this. He considers the reasons why he is here. Boredom? Intrigue? Or was it something more complicated than that? Lefou remembers the dream that he had, remembers the days he’d been there before, and comes to his conclusion.  
  
“Something about this place reminds me—“ he stops _. Reminds me of Gaston_ , he finishes in his head. Why, though? Lefou doesn’t understand.  
  
“Reminds you of what?” the voice prods, and Lefou hears shifting in the trees. The sunlight sifting through the leaves of the trees stops in one area—could it be the Creature speaking to him?  
  
“Reminds me of someone,” Lefou appeases him. “Someone who isn’t here anymore.” And then, the words fall out of his mouth before he can stop them: “My best friend.”  
  
He doesn’t know what it is that reminds him of Gaston, if it’s the atmosphere, the mystical nature of it all, how it disrupted him from the pattern of his days— but it does. It's as if Gaston’s presence carries on through the wind in the trees, through the leaves and the blades of grass. The tree bark could be his skin. The sunlight, his soul.   
  
The Creature hasn't responded. Lefou counts the seconds of silence.  
  
87\.   
  
“Are you ever going to come down?” Lefou asks as he finds the silence growing far too uncomfortable.   
  
5.  
  
“No,” the Creature says.   
  
Lefou sits down on the grass. He watches the shadow in the trees move slowly through the branches. If music could be seen instead of heard, the Creature would be music ever harmonious and brilliant. But music is not seen. Music is heard. In this unfortunate case, the Creature is the most dissonant of music. But like the classists of the 20th century, rioting the concerts that showcased new tone clusters that replaced perfect fifths and major thirds in harmonies that unarguably were the most gorgeous sound to be heard—Lefou could learn to recognize the beautiful genius of the relatively dissonant sounds of the Impressionist movement in music.   
  
Lefou is no longer counting the seconds of silence, but if he were, he would have grown bored with the stretch of numbers. The numbers would have been so many that, if edible, would feed every starving child on earth. The numbers could replace each and every star in the sky and still have numbers to spare.

 

The sun dips beneath the horizon. It’s getting late, yet Lefou can’t find himself  
growing tired. His energy stays buzzing in his chest, ignited by the atmosphere.  
Lefou imagines heaven to be like this. Warm. Comfortable. ( _Reminiscent of Gaston_ , a torturous part of himself says).

“Do you have a name?” Lefou asks at last. His voice sounds different now. He’d last spoken four, five hours ago; and his voice was softer, subdued, too, like the sun: gone.

The Creature cries, (Lefou uses the word _cries_ because his voice always sounds like a cry,) “I am not human. I am hideous.”

The Creature had answered a different question than the one Lefou had asked, but Lefou accepts it as an answer nonetheless. He assumes the Creature claims no name because he finds himself unworthy of one. Humans have names. Dogs have names. Creatures and Beasts do not. And although beauty is subjective, Lefou can make no judgement while the Creature continues to hide from him.

 

“I wouldn’t say that,” Lefou says anyway. “I don’t know if you know this, but we sort of went through this whole thing in town where this beast turned out to be a pretty cool guy, and a beggar turned out to be a beautiful enchantress. It really doesn’t do any good to judge based on appearances.”

The Creature laughs, and Lefou’s heart stops dead in his chest. His laugh is nothing like his voice. It sounds eerily familiar. As if a curtain had lifted, Lefou is enlightened to another side of the Creature. He searches for him again among the light-and-shadow littered tree branches. The Creature retains his invisible nature. The familiar laugh, the glimpses of sillohette, the dreams: it lights Lefou aflame as much as it cools him.

“I’m aware,” the Creature said.

 

His words hang over the two of them like a stray tree branch.

 

Then, “It’s late.” It is a statement of fact as much as it is an accusation.

 

Lefou nods. He stands up. His bones are tired, his flesh stretched and frail.

 

“I'll go, then.”

 

But he doesn't. He stands there, looking at his hands, looking at the trees where he keeps imagining something that looks like Hell to reveal itself. He is disappointed.

 

“Is this going to be recurring?”  the voice cries. “This visiting?”

 

Lefou is taken back. Somehow, he'd never considered that is wouldn't be.

 

“Would you like me to continue?”

 

There is a pause. Not a difficult pause like before, though. No it was not hard, it was not stiff or rough. It was gentle, like waves that washed up on the shore instead of crashing violently.

 

“I think so,” the Creature says. “I would like that.”

 

Lefou turns to leave. He is smiling to himself. He is happy.

 

“Then I will.”

 

~~

 

True to his word, Lefou visits again the next day. The Creature, again, is hiding in the trees.

 

“Will you ever come down?”

 

“No.”

 

And that is all that happens that day. Lefou sits in the center of the clearing, watching the shadow shift through the tree branches. It is like watching fireworks. It is like watching a dance recital. It is like watching a projection of his own ambitions and aspirations. He finds himself wishing among all there is to wish: _let me see him_.

 

But he does not. The Creature hides. Lefou sits in the open. And as minutes turn to hours, Lefou stands again and leaves until the next day when he will return again.

 

~~

 

The next day, they make conversation. It is such an interesting thing to happen for several reasons. One being the mere sound of the Creature’s voice, and the other being the topic of conversation.  

 

They talk of many things, but the Creature is careful never to disclose anything incriminating.

 

“Were you born like this?” Lefou braves himself to ask.

 

The Creature does not respond immediately. There is a short sound like the shaking of a rattle, (the beginnings of his breath,) but he doesn't say anything for a long time.

 

“I don't think so,” he says at last.

 

Lefou finds himself at a loss. “How do you not know?”

 

There is more rattling, but such a length of time passes that Lefou realizes a response will never come. Lefou could change the subject, keep talking on his own, but he was never much good at that sort of thing. He preferred to build off others’ conversation than create his own. He has nothing to say, he realizes. And so they lapse into silence. It isn't exactly uncomfortable only because silence has become so utterly familiar. It is like sleeping on an uncomfortable mattress, soon you get used to it, and can no longer complain.

 

~~

 

At home that night, Lefou is restless. His thoughts run rampant and his body is stressed with cramps and untamed energy that serves no purpose in all the time Lefou had known himself. Every ounce of energy these days went wasted. He hadn’t done anything worthwhile in any amount of notable time.

 

He pushes the blankets off his body, swinging his feet over the side of the bed. His feet hit the floor painstakingly slow. His muscles ache, his heart beats at a tempo Lefou cannot identify, and he prepares himself yet to be decided. Shall he find a snack? Drink some water? Maybe, he thinks to himself, he should take up gardening again. He laughs at the prospect of going into the remnants of his garden in the middle of the night, fumbling around with the weeds and seedless dirt.

 

In the end, he decides to take a walk, and just like the very first day Lefou laid eyes upon the Creature, his legs carried him into the forest.

  
This time, though, it was early morning by the time he reached the clearing. The Creature was in the center, back to Lefou. Lefou can see him.

 

He can _see_ him.

 

The Creature has such beautiful wings that stretch an arm’s length away from the body, crooked like tree branches that love to grow in obscure ways. His shoulders are broad, black, covered in scales. He glistens like silver and his skin ripples with every breath like stones steadily falling into a stream. Lefou was under the impression that the Creature would be ugly. He heard it from Tom, Dick, and Stanley, and from the Creature himself. He felt that even _he_ saw it, and taped the label “unattractive” to the thought of the Creature—but standing here now, there is no angle Lefou could see him from that could be categorized as grotesque.

 

He is afraid to speak, to move, or even to breathe lest he jostle the Creature. In the end, he does none of that, and still, the Creature turns.

 

At the first sight, the Creature takes a step back. The step is sharp and rash like a gunshot.

 

“Wait!” Lefou takes a step forward. “Why do you run?”

 

The Creature’s eyes are frightened, unsure, confused, bemused, tense, _intense_ , brave, strong, insensible, irrational, familiar, beloved—

 

“You don’t have to be scared,” Lefou says.

 

The Creature’s scaled chest rises and falls rapidly. “I’m not _scared_ ,” he spits in his curled voice.

 

Lefou bites back a smile. He distinctly remembers Gaston saying the exact same thing just before the war. Lefou and Gaston were dressing themselves. Gaston had just been promoted to Captain. He was to lead the soldiers to battle. He’d never led anyone in anything so important before. Lefou remembers everything so vividly: Gaston sharpening his blade, his hands shaking, his breath coming out in uneven puffs.

 

 _“It’s okay to be scared,_ ” Lefou remembers himself saying, tapping a hand on Gaston’s shuddering shoulder. And despite Gaston’s visible anxiety, he stood up, taking the sword from the sharpening stone in a quick flourish. He had spun it in his hand, in an X shape in front of his chest, and then stuck the blade in the ground. It was then that he insisted, “ _I’m not scared_ ,” and fumbled through a bloody, bloody battle and emerged victorious.

 

Lefou shakes himself. He needs to forget about someone who evidently never cared about him.

 

“I’m not going to hurt you, or,” Lefou stumbles over his words, “anything else you think I’ll do. Haven’t we become sort of… Friends?”

 

“Friends,” the Creature drones. The word sounds just as foreign in the Creature’s mouth as it did in Lefou’s.

 

Lefou shrugs. “We see each other every day, talk together, I don’t see what our relationship lacks that would make it unlike friendship.”

 

The Creature doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t leave. Lefou is uncertain of whether or not it is an accomplishment. They stand there somewhat awkwardly, the Creature turned partially towards the trees, and Lefou’s palms open towards the Creature, his legs in a half-lunge forward.

 

“Friends,” the Creature gargles again.

 

“Yeah,” Lefou breathes. The more the word is said, the more real it becomes.

 

“You are so…” the Creature starts, “So much better than me. Why would you be my friend where you have—have others, more beautiful than me, to be friends with?”

 

Lefou laughs. “Beauty isn’t everything.”

 

“Isn’t it?”

 

Lefou shakes his head.

 

The Creature lets out a sound akin to a hum, but it’s a shattering type of sound. It’s as if there’s a metal rod stuck in the Creature’s throat that rattles around when he breathes.

 

“There is also strength,” the Creature relents. He turns to face Lefou more openly.

 

Lefou says, “There’s compassion. Intelligence. Loyalty. Honesty. Understanding.”

 

The Creature shifts his weight from one foot to the next. “None of which I have.”

 

As the Creature moves, scales fall from his body like feathers. It’s a strange sight.

 

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Lefou tries.

The Creature turns around, “I’m ugly.”

 

“That’s not what I said.”

 

“Does it matter?”

 

They fall quiet as if the oxygen in the air had stolen their words as well as any words they could think to say.

 

“If you think you don’t have any of those traits,” Lefou’s voice is cautious, “then why don’t you try to acquire some of them?”

 

The Creature turns to look at him. His eyes are wide, startled.

 

“How?”

 

Lefou pauses, considering the question. “I think it has to do with being more aware of yourself and how it impacts others.”

 

The words sit in the air for a moment.

 

“Whenever you do anything, always ask yourself if you would like the same thing being done to you.”

 

The trees make sounds all around them. Makes all sorts of rustling and shushing noises. Lefou feels he has nothing more to say, so he doesn’t say anything. The Creature, however, looks as if he is struggling to come up with words. It looks as if he has everything in the world to say, but cannot for the life of him get anything out in the order they should be heard in.

 

Eventually, he does.

 

“I’ve done a lot of things that I wouldn’t like if they were done to me,” he says.

 

Lefou nods. It’s expected.

 

 “That’s the past,” he consoles, “you can still make up for it.”

 

The Creature presses his lips together. They’re skinless, scaled, and pretty.

 

“Your friend,” he ventures, “the one you mentioned that isn’t here anymore.”

 

The Creature’s words stop, but they seem to continue even though Lefou can’t hear them. Lefou waits, and soon, the Creature continues.

 

“What would you do if you saw him again?”

 

The words slap Lefou across the face.

 

It’s something he hasn’t thoroughly considered. Because he won’t. He won’t— he _can’t_ — see Gaston again.

 

He doesn’t know.

 

He voices as such: “I don’t know.”

 

Then: “I think I’d be angry.”

 

The Creature drops his head. “I—“ he stops. “Sorry,” he rattles.

 

Lefou laughs despite himself. It’s a bitter sound. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

The Creature’s jaw clicks. He starts to walk backwards, but not in effort to leave. It’s a strange thing to watch. Lefou assumes he’s uncomfortable.

 

“He never cared about me,” Lefou finds himself spilling. “I see that now. I understand that. He cared more about—“ he stops. He doesn’t know why he’s saying this.

 

“But he left me.”

 

The Creature is breathing quickly. His hands shake. He looks as if he has every intention to speak—but he never does.

 

Without another word, the Creature walks back to the trees and disappears.

 

Lefou wonders if the Creature is put off by Lefou’s personal story. He wonders if the Creature left out of boredom or distaste. But neither of those words seem fitting. Lefou turns around and walks back home with a sharp, uneasy feeling spiraling in his chest. He recounts the events that just played out, but is left without conclusion.

 

He is ever eager to go back in the morning.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you soooo much for reading, if you feel like it comment i love reading them, and if you have any requests like things youd like to see happen or smth I'm open to that too! find me on tumblr @clingylefou <3 til next week!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit short sorry!! Just expect another chapter hopefully sooner than Friday maybe if i can get it done (finals week is comin up fam here we goooo)
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter is "If I Tremble" by Front Porch Step
> 
> /Deep in the still of the night  
> I hear your voice in the dark  
> it fills the empty spaces  
> taking over my broken heart.   
> You give me strength to go on.  
> You rescue me from the pain./

Some days, the wind is pushing Lefou forwards. The kind of force that is gentle in its way of direction. It is not an iron vice on the wrist, tugging you forward, but instead it is a soft pressure on the back, saying _ come this way _ if and only if you feel the desire to comply. 

 

And the grass, too, is welcoming. In the months since Gaston’s disappearance, (death, call it what you may,) Lefou has never felt such belonging.

 

The Creature no longer hides from Lefou. It’s refreshing. It’s inviting. Every day when Lefou comes, the Creature is waiting for him in the branches of the trees. He waits. Waits and waits and waits. He climbs down when Lefou calls for him.

 

“It’s me,” Lefou says. The Creature told him a few days ago that although he doesn’t like being seen, he doesn’t mind if it’s Lefou. 

 

The Creature climbs down. He’s elegant. His limbs move like a dancer, his skin glimmers like the tops of ocean waves at dawn. Lefou likes to watch each movement, catalogue everything, lest come a day when the Creature no longer allows him to visit. On that day, Lefou would recount every memory to its utmost capacity. Then again, he would recount. Again and again until the sun sets. Then, he will do it again the next day. 

 

Though Lefou hopes it never comes to that.

 

Often times, they are too silent. Silence is unlike quietness in the way that quietness is gentle and silence is forceful. 

 

It is in those times that Lefou asks, “What do you love today?”

 

The first few days, the Creature would say he did not love anything. On those days, his face hardened and so did his skin, much like a child following the ways of the parent. Day after day, the Creature would deny feeling anything reminiscent of happiness. Reminiscent of goodness. Leofu, however, is never one to give up on a friend’s faith. Faith is important. Often times, faith is the determining factor in life or death. 

 

Lefou flashes back for a moment, feeling the schism of Gaston’s betrayal: the ultimate lack of faith.  _ Hero time _ .

 

Every passing moment, Lefou feels himself distancing himself from the memory of Gaston. Each passing moment, Lefou is more himself. Each passing moment, Lefou forgets him.

 

“What do you love today?” Lefou sits down in the grass. It is wet with dew, glistening ever prettily, masterfully, purposefully.

 

The Creature replies today, “The sky.”

 

Lefou doesn’t know if the Creature now makes up answers to appease him, or if he truly has found things he loves.

 

Some days, the Creature says certain colors or bodies of water or mountains. He may say the rivers just a few miles north, or the mountains visible if you were just a few steps outside the protective guard of the trees. And with each answer, scales fall from the Creature’s body, one at a time. They must grow back, Lefou assumes, for every day he appears to have no fewer scales than the day before. If it is anything like a bird losing feathers or a human shedding hair, it is nothing abnormal.

 

“What do you love about the sky?”

 

The Creature rattles, “The color.”

 

Lefou nods. It’s a reasonable answer. He wonders if the answer could have been anything else.

 

Lefou finds that the Creature likes to talk about hunting and war, which is fortunate because Lefou is well-knowledgeable in those subjects. For the briefest moment, Lefou feels the comparison of Gaston seeking refuge in his consciousness. He allows it this once, if for no other reason than old times sake. Since the month-and-a-half ago Lefou first started visiting the Creature, he’s been thinking of Gaston less and less each day. It feels like progress. It’s like Lefou heard once from Belle: loving happens constantly, and can only truly stop when you’ve found something new to love, like the peaceful transfer of power from one ruler of the heart to the next.

 

And that’s where Lefou finds himself confused. He loves the Creature. Not a passionate, undeniable and inconceivable love (though it may grow nearer,) but it is a soft, unburdening love. It is fleeting, there for a moment and gone the next, returning like birds in the morning. Lefou loves the way the Creature speaks, loves his eccentricities. He finds it refreshing from the rest of the world. Gaston, too, was eccentric. But Gaston was eccentric in the way that other people accepted. And though Lefou would love to take the Creature by the hand and show him to the rest of the world, he fears it would not be well received.

 

The Creature allows himself to be seen by him, and for that alone Lefou can thank him. 

 

Some days Lefou brings cards to play games. After all, they talk very little. There isn’t much to talk about, or rather, there is far too much to talk about. Neither of them are brave enough to voice any of it, though. It is a snake, slithering around and eating at their feet. It is a constant presence. Lefou is entirely unaware of it in the way that you hear the buzzing of a wasp in the room but are unable to locate it. 

 

One thing the Creature refuses to talk about is his past. Lefou knows for certain that the Creature wasn’t born like this. It just makes sense. Adam had talked a bit about his transformation, what happened that led to it and what he did as a Beast. Lefou reasons that, logically, this person had done something that warranted being turned into the Creature he is now.

 

Though one day, (a few days ago, Lefou remembers today, sitting and playing cards,) he had approached the topic.

 

“Before you were like this, who were you?” Lefou had asked. His voice was everything soft and inviting, but the Creature had curled in on himself, like a child, (afraid,) as if Lefou held a blade to his throat.

 

He never did answer: his throat made noises, his face contorted, he shook his head.

 

Lefou had wanted to let it go. It was obviously a topic the Creature didn’t want to discuss, and a kinder person would have dropped the subject. But he couldn’t. It was parasitic in the way it ate and ate and ate at him. It was never satisfied. He would lie awake at night to dreams of the Creature’s face melting away into someone entirely too familiar.

 

Those few days ago, Lefou had asked: “Did I know you?”

 

There was a not-so-steady stream of white noise, humming off and on like a broken respiratory machine. Like lungs with marbles stuck inside. This noise continued long enough for symphony strings to pick up and carry out the rest of an orchestral performance. Tchaikovsky was approaching then and there, drawing a baton, and on the upbeat, the Creature spoke.

 

“No.”

 

The word had fallen like a feather: weightless and soundless as if unspoken. It felt anticlimactic. It felt wrong. It felt like a lie.

 

To this day, Lefou hears that word before he falls asleep. 

 

But we’ve run off course. I was talking about games.

 

Lefou often brings games since they speak very little. Today he brings a deck of cards.

 

They sit and play in silence. Neither one truly knows the rules to whatever game they end up playing. It’s like all the games they know blur together. They both bend rules and cheat as if their stream of consciousness flows together, as if they become aware of new rules before they've been written. Completely in sync. Lefou can’t be bothered to care. He’s happy to be here.

 

He can't place why. 

 

But they play and play. Time slips away. And soon, Lefou takes the cards back, absently shuffles the deck, and looks up at the Creature. He sees the Creature’s rippling skin, scaled and metallic. He sees the Creature’s nose akin to a snake’s. He sees the Creature, and any type of fear he used to feel-- it is no longer there. Such curiosity it is that Lefou recognizes. He wonders at what point the Creature started to deserve a humanistic pronoun in place of an objective one.

 

It cannot be the conversation, for they speak very little. It cannot be charm, for the Creature screeches in place of where he should whisper, scratches in places he should embrace. Yet, Lefou is drawn to him.

 

He looks at the Creature’s eyes, ever familiar.

 

Lefou turns around, starts back home. Just before he leaves, though, he turns back around. His hands are twitching in anxiety, his heart racing and storming. It is a strong feeling, a foreboding feeling. It is the crashing waves, the thunder, the stormclouds. Lefou’s intention represents a single rowboat on the sea. 

 

Without any semblance of caution, he blurts:

 

“Are you sure I did not know you?”

 

The Creature’s shoulders tense, hold themselves higher, and he twists his face in a familiar way. Familiar. That word claws around Lefou’s mind like a tyrant claiming control of what is said not to be theirs.  _ Why is he so familiar? _

 

“I’d never met you before.” 

 

The Creature’s words are very cold. Not cold in the way that winter is cold, but cold in the way a metal wall is cold. If you were to remove clothing, and press your naked back to the wall, feel the muscles shift against the surface, slide down, and hug your knees in attempt to warm yourself-- to no avail. To no good effort. It is cold, and as long as body heat continues to escape, you will always be cold.

 

Lefou is cold.

 

What reason would the Creature have to lie though? And what would Lefou expect? What answer does he want to hear?

 

But Lefou does not want to think of answers to these questions. He runs from the potential of an answered rhetorical question. For he knows. He knows the answer.

 

He so desperately wants it to be Gaston.

  
And he feels ridiculous for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aghh short right? sorry about that again! next chapter will hopefully be up soon, but if nothing else something will be up by next friday lol wish me luck on all my finals geeez studying to do
> 
> i'm open to suggestions also! if you want to see something happen! (if you've given a suggestion previously i heard you fam it mayyyy be comin up soon stay tuned fam love you)
> 
> thank you for reading!! i love comments and kudos! you can find me on tumblr @clingylefou


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> r u guys rEADY for this
> 
> soundtrack for this chapter: 9 Crimes by Damien Rice
> 
> It's the wrong kind of place  
> To be thinking of you  
> It's the wrong time  
> For somebody new  
> It's a small crime  
> And I've got no excuse

It may be a blind attempt to further rid Gaston from his memory, but nonetheless, the next day Lefou thinks he will take up gardening again. It's been on his mind for some time. Every time he walks past his neglected soil, he thinks of it: flowers to take the space in his life that otherwise seems vacant. The idea of something so beautiful yet animate is so near in sight, it has been for some time now. So this morning, he wakes up feeling the motivation necessary to start.

 

Slowly, as the days crawl by, he is less bothered by the vacancy. He finds other things to fill it. The substitutes are inadequate at first. The first comparison I made was using sticks to substitute a home. But as more and more sticks are added, it creates a tent, and as more are added, the tent becomes bigger and stronger and more comfortable. And Lefou gains experience. He learns to weave the sticks into walls. A home is not far away, Lefou believes, and with time alone to heal him, he knows some day he will forget Gaston and the impression Gaston left on him.

 

He steps outside in the early morning, lightly dressed and barefoot. Early. The sun is hardly peeking above the horizon with its lowly glow. It’s a bit chilly because it’s autumn turning to winter, and the town is not yet awake. It’s calming.

 

He digs up the weeds first, tends to the soil. There truly is much work to do. How many months ago was it--? The Events, as Lefou refers to in his head. It’s a blur. It has been at least seven months, probably more. His hands plunge into the soil. It is cold. Damp.

 

As he gardens, he is lost in thought; most of the things he thinks about is Gaston related, but Gaston’s face becomes more and more distant each day, as if Gaston is a figure in a room that Lefou is walking backwards and away from. The room floods with water. They are submerged. And still: Lefou sees Gaston’s likeness through the kaleidoscope-effect of the water’s surface. Lefou wonders if one day, he will be unable to remember him at all.

 

The idea isn't as scary as it used to be: continuing without Gaston’s overbearing presence. His carrying presence. His comfortable presence. And even more frighteningly, Lefou begins to believe that all of this happened for better. As those words cross his mind, his chest sputters in a sick cough. It startles, a broken machine. Some part of him feels disloyal for being able to accept the loss. But what else is there to do? Mourn Gaston’s loss for the rest of his life?

 

When people speak of lost ones, they often say they move on because they believe whomever they lost would want them to. _My wife would want me to move on and be happy,_ a widower said just last week, voice stronger than broken but frailer than strong. He smelt of tobacco ashes and smoke. He is the vivid image of what it is to be alone.

 

But Lefou finds that hard to imagine. He can't motivate himself based on what Gaston would want for him because Gaston only ever wanted things for himself. That's clear now. Lefou once believed they were friends, but what kind of friend could toss one another to the side? Whatever relationship they had before The Events was gone, replaced with bitter betrayal.

 

Which is why Lefou feels free to move on, only with the smallest bit of guilt flowering in his heart as easily as tulips in spring.

 

The soil grows warmer the longer Lefou manages it. With eyes cast to the ground, he assesses the land. It’s bare. Lifeless. Once upon a time before now, there were daffodils and roses and lavenders.

 

No matter. He will get seeds, and then, the garden will be beautiful.

 

Lefou then stands and admires his work. He's done enough.

 

The sun has risen enough to dance atop the trees around the perimeter of the town. It’s a lovely day, and that alone lifts Lefou’s spirits. Aching numbness has been wrung from his body like water from a rag. He feels new. He goes back inside, stepping around the dirt of his garden and pulling the door shut behind him.

 

His daily routine has long since been broken. Instead of visiting the tavern every day, he visits every few days. Some days he stays home to himself, cleaning and cooking and thinking. Household tasks are something Lefou is good at, and while he can manage more “masculine” and “tough” things like hunting and war, he much rather prefers mundane tasks. Why did a “man’s” often involve violence?

 

In the bathroom, Lefou washes himself. After dressing, he prepares to go to the tavern. The walk there is nothing interesting.

 

He pushes the tavern door open, and stands there a moment before he joins. Music is playing, and people are cheering for one reason or another. It is the image of happiness in one way, and the image of boredom in another. Everything is always like this, always some kind of celebration. And if everything is a celebration, where is the diversity? The liveliness? _Perhaps_ , Lefou thinks to himself as he pushes past the crowd, _I look into it more than I should_.

 

Nonetheless, the atmosphere is contagious, and as he approaches Tom, Dick, and Stanley Lefou grins through the enthusiasm bubbling in his spirit.

 

“One more please,” Lefou tells the tavern owner, waving a hand at his friends’ drinks.

 

“Lefou!” Tom greets amicably. “Where have you been, old friend?”

 

The other two turn at Tom’s greeting as if seeing Lefou for the first time; bright and startled, but happy nonetheless.  

 

Tom continues, “Yesterday we played darts, and you were not there to name a winner.”

 

Often, Lefou would judge the winners of games they played. It’s because Lefou finds more enjoyment in watching than playing. He loves to see the victorious moments, see others rejoice, for their happiness brings him happiness. It occurs to Lefou in that moment that happiness is like a disease that spreads from person to person. If Lefou isolates himself, he will only feel a concrete and cold loneliness. He must stop from isolating himself. This. This is what he had been missing. His friends.

 

“I'm sorry,” Lefou is sincere. “I had been preoccupied. I've taken up gardening again.” It was a partial truth.

 

Tom gives a firm nod, bringing his cup to his lips.

 

“What will you be planting?” Stanley asks. He leans forward across the table. “Edible or nonedible?”

 

Lefou gives a soft shrug. The words float over him softly, gently, sweetly. He, too, leans forward. “I haven't given it much thought.”

 

“Edible would make most sense,” Dick chimes in. “You could make better use of your garden that way.”

 

“Flowers are prettier, though,” Stanley ponders.

 

Lefou considers the options. True, planting potatoes would be more worthwhile, but for so long he had seen the phantom of flowers in his unkept garden. More than anything, he wants to see beauty, see the embodiment of love and kind will. Flowers of course appeal to him more, yet to completely disregard the merits of planting edible crops would be unwise.

 

“I'll do both,” Lefou decides.

 

Just as he speaks, a loud roar of applause erupts from the other side of the tavern. Looking over, Lefou sees several men clambering over each other, one bleeding from the mouth. The second man holds his hands up, mouth open in a cry of victory. Lefou shakes his head to himself, barely noticeable. Stanley, also averts his eyes from the scene with his lips pressed together. Dick shrugs, indifferent. Tom, though, watches with vigor. He cheers along.

 

“I can give you some seeds,” Stanley interrupts Lefou’s trance.

 

They lock eyes for a moment. The noise around them dies down.

 

“Oh,” Lefou starts. “That would be really kind of you.”

 

Another round of applause shakes the building.

 

“Shall we get them now or later?”

 

Lefou stands, leaving his drink on the table without any attempt to empty it.

 

“Now,” he says. He casts a glance at the brawl, and turns away from it again.

 

They wave goodbye to Tom and Dick.

 

Outside, they walk like they know each other well, and in a way they do. They breathe similarly and shuffle their feet similarly and hesitate similarly. He and Stanley know each other by association, but had never interacted so much until recently. It's like when you suddenly become aware of something and you start seeing it all over the place. It's overwhelming. Stanley is kind, Lefou acknowledges, kinder than some. He rather likes him.

 

Stanley doesn't live far from the tavern, and it takes them fewer than ten minutes to reach his home. The house is quaint, simply decorated, and pretty. The door has flowers at the entrance, bright and red and purples and blues, a perfect assembly of analogous colors. The sun lightens the straw roof and makes the house have an ethereal, magical glow.

 

Stanley smiles and holds the door open for Lefou. It's a kind sentiment, one Lefou is unused to. Stanley is good at this, showing Lefou new gestures and shocking him with the novelty of it. Inside, the home is well kept and tidy. There are large open spaces where furniture would fit, but is otherwise bare; it has a simple attractiveness to it.

 

They walk through the house in gentle silence. Lefou makes mental notes of the one painting on the wall of a bouquet of flowers, and of the faded, antiquated table in the center of the dining room. They walk through one main room, (and as prementioned, it is large and bare,) and then into a smaller back room.

 

Stanley says, “they're in here,” voice far away and drifting.

 

Lefou is trailing behind him, somewhat distracted. By the time he catches up, Stanley is crouching to pick up a large, wooden case. The room they're in is dimly lit, for there are no windows. It's difficult to see the cluttered mess around them. It seems like a sort of storage room. There is a bed in the corner, old and gathering dust, but otherwise in good condition. It's a firm bed, with quality, better than Lefou could judge most to be.

 

“My sister used to be here, too,” Stanley says suddenly. Lefou realizes he'd been staring. “She married, though. Lives too far away to visit.”

 

Lefou nods a sharp, short nod. He wants to say something, but he doesn't. Stanley allows the silence to seep beneath their skins. It attacks them, but perhaps attack isn't the right word. Attack implies intention to harm. This silence does not have the intention to harm, yet harm it does.

 

“I miss living with someone,” Stanley discloses. His words are thin, like bread and lettuce and tomato. They are fewer words that he means to say.

 

“I understand,” Lefou says, voice low and quiet. And he does. He does understand the effect sudden absence can bring to life, or rather, take away from it.

 

And the silence is back. It plays like music between them in the way that music decorates time, holding listeners captive, not allowing them to move forward in time. This silence wraps around them and holds them in place. They cannot move forward.

 

“If you like,” Stanley says, (his voice is direct, but hesitation causes him to miss his target,) “you can come any time you like.”

 

Some bags, cloth and tied shut, are pushed to Lefou’s chest. It's haphazard. It's reckless. The bag symbolizes the punctuation mark to the wrong sentence.

 

“They're just some flowers. I don't have any food crops,” Then, Stanley leads them out of the room. He’s moving his head to his right as he speaks in a way that most would consider a gesture for eye sight. It isn't. “I enjoy gardening, too. Just flowers, though.”

 

They're back out in that vast, open space. The wood panel floors stretch far, go on endlessly; it is the largest room in a home Lefou has seen. The floor is a light, auburn color. The walls melt together sweetly. The front door is ever smaller on the other side. He and Stanley don’t leave yet though. They're held there.

 

Out the window, Lefou can see Stanley’s garden. It is everything Lefou could imagine creating himself. It is a dream he cannot attempt to live.

 

Quietness touches them.

  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It touches their shoulders.

  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It touches their noses and their cheeks and the skin of their lips.

  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The quietness is persistent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Stanley walks Lefou to the door.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is quiet.

  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lefou believes that in another life, he would have loved Stanley.

 

But it is too late.

 

Love, to Lefou, is like the plague. You only get it once. And once you do, it kills you.

  
  


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  


Lefou has taken to walking and gardening and cooking. He does, of course, visit the Creature, (in fact more often than before,) but visits are repetitive and to recount them in narrative once more would be tedious. It is eight months later. Visits can last two hours or ten, and they are, in essence, the same.

 

They sit relatively close in proximity, drowned in a sea of near-silence; and after the longest time, they say bits of words. It’s like playing Scrabble with the air as your opponent, having every letter at your disposal but lacking the capacity to spell them into words. It's like sitting at the edge of a buffet, each party famished, though neither willing to eat.

 

Lefou can speak for himself: there is much he would like to talk about. And he tells himself-- _today is the day I will ask him_ \-- but he never does. He takes one look at him, at his scaled and frigidly-still face. His throat closes up. His words die on his tongue, (if they ever even lived).

 

So instead, they talk about things that don't matter like the weather and hypothetical war strategies and hunting patterns. Lefou talks about his garden and what he hopes it to become.

 

Their relationship becomes stagnant. Neither of them are willing to push the boundaries of what they have together.

 

An outside force, then, must intervene.

 

Lefou’s first mistake, so to speak, is to come at an unexpected time; for, he cannot sleep. The moon seems to scream at him in sleep and in spirit. He is restless. His skin itches, crawls atop his muscles. In a perfect world, he might drink some tea and go back to sleep. He might read a book until fatigue overrules his restlessness. But this is not in any way shape or form a perfect world. And Lefou is in no way a perfect man.

 

Stiffly, he throws himself from his bed, ties his hair up messily, and leaves. The night is unusually cold in the way that it should be unbearable. Lefou’s thin shirt does little to keep him warm. It is late February, yet the winter winds persists. The wind bites at his skin with its venomous teeth. Violence is all around him. He cannot escape. Negativity, anguish, agony, crawl around. He told himself he was over this, and though still he won’t place a name to it, but he knows what it is. It’s the persistence of mourning. The loss of his best friend. It comes back in waves, usually at night, and hangs over him.

 

He wants to go to the Creature where the world stops existing. Where the magic of the clearing will hold him still, placate him, and calm his nerves. Where he might feel at peace. Where he won’t feel yearning or want or loss.

 

He’d forgotten shoes, he realizes in the middle of the forest. His feet are aching now, but he doesn’t care. He is pulled forward as if by a rope around the neck. It is completely out of his power to stop, to slow down, to turn back; nor would he want to.

 

The screams in the back of his mind fight to be heard, the memories, the unkept promises and swears. He pushes them down. They fade to white noise, faint static, underneath his subconscious.

 

Though as he approaches the clearing, different voices emerge. They are real, and become louder the closer he gets.

 

As he walks forward, he is able to see. There, the Creature is standing in the center of the clearing with another figure.

 

“It was unintended,” the woman says. Her voice is soft as anything Lefou could ever remember hearing. It is gentle, soft, yet wields unimaginable power. It vibrates with each word.

 

“Then take it _back!_ ” the Creature shrieks.

 

“Realize that this spell saved your life,” the woman is unaffected by the Creature’s hostility. “As I cast it, it brought the castle-dwellers back to life and back to their true form.”

 

The woman is wearing a beautiful green hood. She walks around the Creature, and pulls the hood down. Her hair is golden as the sun, curled and gorgeous. Her face is calm as the sea after a storm.

 

“And look at what it did to you,” the words are insulting, but more than that, they are imploring.

 

The Creature’s face is contorted. He looks in pain.

 

The Creature says, “Can it be cured?” voice flat and hopeless.

 

The woman tilts her head, as if seeing the Creature from a different angle would change the view.

 

“All curses have a cure,” she says, “it would be bad form any other way.”

 

“How?” the Creature’s voice does not raise in question. It strikes downwards as a soldier may strike down an opponent.

 

The woman does not say anything more. She walks and walks around the Creature like a judge assessing a criminal. She, like the forest, glows with light unreal to the world. She is marvelous, amazing, awesome. Lefou wonders who she is and why she is there. From what he gathered, this woman is the Enchantress who cursed Adam, and now the Creature.

 

Then, the woman says in a voice so clear Lefou hears the words ringing in his head long after they are spoken. If he had still been in bed, he would have heard them. If he had been in another country, he would have heard them. If he had been chained underwater, deafened by the unbearable pressure and damage, still, he would have heard them. No matter French, Mandarin, Portuguese, or Italian, Lefou would hear those words.

 

She announces,  “ _This_ is your true form, Gaston.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _Fuck_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The words pierce Lefou through the chest as easily as the blade of a longsword. It bleeds. He drops to his knees, unable to keep upright. It bleeds. His entire body is cold. It bleeds. Cold does not truly exist in itself, for it is only the absence of heat. It bleeds. Lefou, in this moment, is absent of everything. Absent of feeling, absent of strength, absent of thought.

 

And the woman keeps talking. She’s speaking more words, and they hit Lefou like a professional fighter, fist after fist, word after word.

  
“And until your true form changes, your physical will not either.”

 

Around them, the trees begin the fall. The earth quakes. Literal, and figurative. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE PLOT THICKENNSSSS 
> 
> was the very many spaces too annoying or artistic I was shooting for artistic lol i couldnt find the appropriate words to fill silence because it's silence you feel 
> 
> I did write a bit more to this but I felt it would be more dramatic if I ended it here instead of later, so you'll read the rest in the next chapter next week!! Thank you for reading so much omg and i love reading all of your comments, some i read multiple times. Thank you for the support! You can find me on tumblr @clingylefou and i love to talk about headcanons hmu fam lol


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter soundtrack:
> 
> Figures by Jessie Reyez
> 
> I wish I could hurt you back.  
> Love, what would you do  
> if you couldn't get me back?  
> You're the one who's gonna lose  
> Something so special, something so real.  
> Tell me boy, how in the fuck would you feel?  
> If you couldn't get me back.  
> That's what I wish that I could do to you.

Lefou is gasping for breath. He can't get his lungs to work. He can't get his eyes to see.

 

Around him, the trees fall like dominoes, one after another, relentlessly and strong. The Enchantress stands unwaveringly and without flinching when a twelve-meter-tall juniper tree comes crashing two inches in front of her face. Her hair and its golden glow moves with the force of it. It is difficult to stand on the trembling earth. It should be terrifying, watching the world crumble around you, but Lefou can't find it in his heart to care.

 

The Enchantress continues to speak. She is the melody to the percussive atmosphere.

 

“ _You can start many ways.”_

 

What could Lefou do now?

 

“ _Even the smallest of changes will take the scales from your body.”_

 

Run away?

 

“ _Any bit of honesty, kindness, loyalty-”_

 

Never look back. Run.

 

“ _-will start to save you.”_

 

Gaston clenches his fists by his sides. His expression is unreadable even if Lefou were to be looking. But Lefou isn't looking, his eyes are transfixed at his lap- cold, helpless, unseeing.

 

“Perhaps,” the woman turns around, and it's like the sun has risen. She casts light by her gaze alone. “You can start with the person you hurt the most.”

 

The Enchantress raises her hands above her head, and as Lefou raises his gaze at last, she is gone. The ground is truly, in the most literal sense, shaking. Lefou thought it was in his head, but it's real. The palms of his hands hit the cold earth. He digs his hands into the dirt, feels it tremble beneath him, and releases his grip. It is then that Lefou looks up, seeing Gaston for the first time. But it isn’t for the first time. Because it’s been him all along.

 

_It’s been Gaston all along._

 

Lefou’s face is tear-streaked and messy. He’s an emotional wreck.

 

When he can finally understand what’s happening it’s too late. The storm has hit, fierce and magical, and there’s no escape. It is entirely force and wind without rain. The clearing becomes littered with fallen trees, and is soon indistinguishable from the rest of the forest. Lefou can’t bring himself to care. He can’t bring himself to move.

 

The ground is still shaking. The trees are still falling. Lefou doesn’t move.

 

Gaston stares at him, reminiscent to the first day they met like this. The world falls around them, and they stand, timeless, as if unaffected. Lefou is the very definition of affected. He doesn't want anything to do with this Creature. He wants to run away. He wants to leave and never see him again. Yet, he cannot move. So, he is forced to stare.

 

Gaston’s mouth is set in a thin line, and several times, it seems like he wants to say something.

 

Lefou doesn't want to hear anything he has to say.

 

Then, Gaston surges forward, mouth open in a cry that’s probably Lefou’s name, but Lefou doesn’t hear it. Gaston’s cold, scaled hands grab onto Lefou’s shirt and pull him backwards and out of the way of a tree that crashes down behind him. Gaston is talking. _Gaston_. Is talking. Lefou can’t hear him. It is garbled and scattered; his words pass through Lefou without any recognition.

 

Somehow, Lefou knew from the beginning. He knew, he did. Somewhere inside him, the familiarity, the surrealism of it all: it was because Lefou knew it was Gaston. And the dreams. And though he found himself wishing it to be true, here and now, Lefou hates him.

 

He's angry.

 

He's angry that Gaston could listen to him talk, that Gaston could see Lefou everyday, experience Lefou’s company all the while Lefou was forced to go on without Gaston. Every day Lefou spent alone, Gaston spent _with_ _him_. Gaston saw what Lefou became in loss, the depression he succumbed to. Gaston LET him suffer and grieve and mourn when he knew it to be needless.

 

Gaston had lied to him, not necessarily in neglecting to announce his true identity, but he lied when he said Lefou didn't know him. And that is where I, as a narrator, can disclose that the following events would otherwise never have happened had Gaston told the truth in that moment. In another universe somewhere, Gaston told the truth, said, _yes you did know me_ , and Lefou had understood why Gaston did not tell him earlier through a calmer discussion of intention and affection and prevention.

 

Instead of seventeen months of depression and loss, Lefou would have gone only three and a half.

 

Because with the extra time to harden Lefou’s heart, Lefou doesn’t care why Gaston lied, only that he did. And it makes him even more angry.

 

Everything comes too quickly. Gaston is talking in his new voice, metallic and gross, and he's speaking very urgently, hastily.

 

Lefou doesn't _care_.

 

Gaston cries, “ _We have to leave_ ,” and the words fall on deaf ears.

 

What happens next Lefou cannot be relied on to retell. He is in a state of shock, unable to do anything, unable to speak or move, pass thought from one side of his mind to the next, _anything_. Gaston takes his arm and pulls him through the debris.

 

After everything. The Events. The loss. Over a year has passed, Lefou thought he understood everything, he thought the world was just starting to make sense again. It was an inconceivable amount of time that was simultaneously an eternity and a moment. Every day was the same. Every day was lackluster.

 

He had accepted Gaston’s death. He had accepted the way he had to live now. And in a village like Villeneuve, there isn't much to change over time. It's like Lefou’s entire being switched operating systems, and everything previous had been discarded.

 

Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe everything of the present and future couldn't be fully registered. Everything had happened so quickly: Belle, Maurice, the Beast. The mob. The fall. Lefou has heard of the effects of traumatic instances of loss. It happens to men during war. Lefou never understood it. Not until what happened to Gaston.

 

It's like standing in a carpeted bedroom when suddenly the floor is pulled from beneath you, and you land on cold concrete that fractures your bones, tears ligaments that causes the vertebrae to break and collapse.

 

It's a sudden flood; cold, chaotic, cruel water that destroys more than fire could ever hope to destroy, in a slower, more excruciating process.

 

But enough with analogies. Analogies can only describe so much, and are entirely inadequate in nature; for as close as words can come, ultimately, words do no justice.

 

Gaston brings them to a cave. The storm rages outside, and by the time Lefou shakes himself out of his lost thoughts, it had started raining, too. Lefou’s knees are pulled to his chest, face hidden behind his legs. Gaston is sitting some distance away from him with his scaled skin and talons and broken wings. His gaze is cast downwards. Lefou watches him, unsettled; as if someone had set loose a bees in his ribcage; wasps in his heart; lightning bugs in his head, flashing and flashing as if to set enough light to see clearly.

 

The cave is quiet, save for the pattern of rain blessing their ears. It is rhythmical, methodical, hypnotizing. Lefou wants to forget where they are, who he’s with. He nearly succeeds.

 

“So,” Gaston’s voice is a disgusting, rattling sound. “Now you know.”

 

Lefou’s face lifts slowly, like a car getting closer in the distance in a neighborhood, nearing and nearing in the distance, over hills and through fog. He wants to laugh with the absurdity of the statement. _Now you know_.

 

“Now I know?” Lefou’s words are venomous, sticky on his own tongue.

 

Gaston’s wings shift over his shoulders, scales iridescent and strong over his skin, “Well,” he says, “You should have been able to figure it out a lot sooner than that.”

 

Suddenly, Lefou’s shock, confusion, anything of neutral territory shakes off like water from hands after a bath. He is completely, utterly, angry.

 

“This is my fault?” the words shoot out of him in rapid succession, punctuated by a short, breathless laugh, “Of course it is. Isn’t everything?”

 

Lefou stands up without another word. What else had he expected? A huge, heartfelt apology? Even if he had received one, would that have been enough? In all his years, Lefou had never once heard Gaston say the words _I’m sorry,_ yet somehow he had let himself believe he’d hear them now. He’s foolish.

 

He takes a single step outside the cave when he’s pulled backwards.

 

Gaston’s touch is cold, strong, (of course it’s strong. Could he be weak in any form at all?). His arm wraps around Lefou’s waist, tight, secure.

 

“What do you think you’re doing?” Gaston demands. His voice shakes Lefou, so close to his ear. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

 

Lefou turns around, places his palm on Gaston’s chest, and pushes him backwards. He has little strength compared to Gaston, yet Gaston stumbles backwards, be it because of shock or something akin to a more-skilled chess player allowing defeat.

 

“So now you care if I’m dead or not,” the words crawl out of Lefou’s lips like beetles and spiders and centipedes. They are without his permission, having never crossed his mind so explicitly before, only in whispers and ghosts of concepts. The words enlighten Lefou in a backwards way. _Enlighten_. Verb. Meaning, to give someone greater knowledge or understanding about a subject or situation. The words cause any flickering flame of hope, optimism, or good will to be blown out. He is cast into darkness.

 

“How could you say that?” Gaston’s voice is quiet, but does not lose its strength.

 

“You left me to die.”

 

It thunders. Lefou is unsure if it’s his heart or the storm.

 

“What?” Gaston reels, “When?”

 

“In the castle!” Lefou says, “I asked for your hand-- your help-- and you--”

 

He stops.

 

It rains. In the silence he provides, Gaston of the past might have said something to fill it, might have interrupted a few words ago. But something is different about this Gaston, and this Gaston allows the silence to cover them in a chilling sheet.

 

So, Lefou does something he can’t remember ever having done. He finishes his sentence.

 

“You left me alone.”

 

Gaston’s eyes are so utterly, painfully familiar. Lefou hates them.

 

“We fought in the war together,” Gaston says eventually. He is subdued, unsure, dubious, “There was a greater battle ahead. You were fine. You were unharmed. You would have been able to handle yourself. How is leaving you then any different than moving forward in battle?”

 

“It’s different,” Lefou insists, “because I asked for your help.”

 

Gaston had a point. Several times in war had Lefou fallen and told Gaston to go forward. But it’s different when Lefou asks him _not_ to go forward, asks for him to help, and to be turned aside.

 

Gaston goes to speak, but Lefou talks over him. It’s a strange feeling, an empowering feeling in all its disrespect. He’d never once disrespected Gaston before. It felt wrong and right at the same time: wrong in theory, but right in heart.

 

“And it’s more than that,” Lefou says. He takes a step forward, and Gaston takes a step backwards. “You used me. You’ve taken me for granted.”

 

Lefou’s heart aches in his chest. Each word comes out in a flurry of emotion, dispelling itself from his body at the same time it amplifies. Once spoken, the concept becomes more real. People say you have more chance at achieving a dream if you talk about it out loud. Lefou has a dream of loving someone who loves him in return in the ways he needs to be loved.

 

“I’ve poured my life into serving you, hoping that one day you’ll see me. You never have.”

 

Gaston shakes his head in confusion. “I’ve always seen you.”

 

A sharp, staccato laugh shoots from Lefou’s throat.

 

“No, I do,” Gaston insists “I see everything you do for me. I always have, it’s just--”

 

“You don’t,” Lefou interrupts.

 

Gaston argues, “I do.” There is a musical beat of quietness. “And I realize I have taken advantage of you.” Another measure of rest. “I didn’t know what I had until you were gone.”

 

The storm has started to quiet, but still persists. Lefou balls his hands into fists, tense and fretful. His eyes are transfixed on the ground, littered with black, shell-shaped, reflective pieces. They are scales, shedding from Gaston’s body.

 

“What do you want from me?” Gaston asks. His voice sounds smoother, a raspy rendition of what it used to be.

 

Lefou can’t say. His throat had long since locked up, stuffing his words down into his stomach.

 

Gaston hears him though. He says: “I’m sorry.” His voice is booming, without filter.

 

And the storm stops abruptly as if by magic.

 

Lefou’s voice shakes as he turns his back.

 

“I can’t forgive you right now.”

 

And he leaves. Gaston doesn’t follow, and Lefou doesn’t expect him to. Lefou doesn’t know the way back home, though. He wasn’t in any state to pay attention when Gaston carried him here. And now after the storm, nothing is left recognizable.

 

He has two choices: leave anyway, risk being lost and in danger of whatever else lived in the forest-- or stay.

 

He glances backwards. The thought of being with Gaston for another moment sickens him.

 

Lefou runs away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aYEEE I DID IT You guys have no idea how proud I am of updating every week like this is unreal how am i doing this who knows. In other news i had graduation practice today and graduate high school in oNE WEEK *APPLAUSE* I'm enrolled in college for fall this year 10/10 looking forward to it
> 
> In related news, I'm low key thinking of changing the name of this fic to just "The Fool" because it's more captivating and focuses more on Lefou which is what this fic serves to do. Thoughts?? 
> 
> Thank you guys soooo much for reading, and commenting as always!! I love reading your comments. You can find me on tumblr @clingylefou <3 til next week!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOOOLDFLASJDFK I just got back home like an hour ago and finished up this chapter (yes they're getting shorter so that i can update on time lol) At the end of it all, I think I might go back and rewrite some parts, MIGHTHTTT idk yet fam 
> 
> Speaking of! There are probably only one or two more chapters left in this thing! Just so ya know lol
> 
> Soundtrack for this chapter: Issues by Julia Michaels
> 
> I've got issues  
> But you've got them too  
> So give them all to me and I'll give mine to you  
> Bask in the glory of all our problems  
> 'Cause we've got the kind of love it takes to solve them

The land is desolate. 

 

Lefou feels like a tourist in a land he once knew by heart, by thought alone, by each grain of sand and each branch of the trees. But nearly half the trees have fallen, littering the ground in a grotesque, unwelcoming manner, and Lefou is at a loss for what to do or where to go. He steps over and around the debris, looks up at the sky, and clenches his fists by his side. 

 

He will continue forward. If he walks straight for long enough, he will no doubt reach something.

 

So Lefou walks. 

 

He banishes thought of Gaston from his mind, for the traces of him lights a burner under the stove of Lefou’s chest, bringing his blood to a slow rise in temperature, inching towards anger and fury. Being in front of him for months unbeknownst to himself was one thing, something that would be simple, forgivable ignorance; but Gaston stood in front of him and said  _ I’d never met you before _ , strong and unwavering in word. It is a sticky, gross feeling that clobbers him. He wants to be as far away from him as he can. 

 

Perhaps it is the disappointment. Perhaps it is the wrongness of it all. Is it time to forget him? Is it time to forgive?

 

Gaston, who had left him alone that night, denied his call for help so easily, betrayed his trust. But anger is a secondary emotion, like lighting coming after rainfall. Lefou is not truly angry, he is hurt. He has used up every bit of melancholic sense inside him. He is left bitter. 

 

But Lefou is not bitter in spirit. The sensation is new. Though,  _ new _ has a positive connotation, so it does not in fact feel new. It feels as if a seed he never knew he planted just sprouted and stands tall in his heart- heavy, stiff, and painful. It wraps coils around his ribcage, guarding his heart with the thorny vines of a rose. His heart beats and bangs against its cage.

 

He banishes thought of Gaston from his mind, but he thought he did that a moment before. Gaston is comparable to wildflowers. Lefou finds Gaston in the furthest reaches of his mind, in places that Gaston has no business being found in; yet Lefou is always astounded by Gaston’s beauty. It is hateful, how beautiful he is. It is marvelous. 

 

Lefou loves Gaston for his bravery and his recklessness. He knows his flaws, and sees them like paint spills on an artist’s carpeted studio floor: right and fitting. But how far is too far? When does aloofness become disregard? When does confidence become arrogance, become apathy? 

 

Should Lefou forgive him for his trespasses? Is he being unreasonable?

 

Lefou can see far to his left and to his right and forward, but the land seems endless. He steps over the the trunks of trees, pushes through the mess, and thinks about home. As the sun rises, holds a steady position above his head, the earth warms and Lefou feels at ease. He can ignore the chaos that otherwise surrounds him. He can ignore the burn that spreads through his chest. 

 

Though the sun starts to drip, and soon darkness reigns. The moon steals the warmth, blanketing Lefou in a chilly breeze. He walks forward, stumbling in his gait, and aches. His feet are still bare. He had forgotten shoes in his haste and regrets it now. 

 

At night, Lefou rests, feeling small in the world. His dreams are vacant, wispy deterrents of reality. They cause him to toss in his sleep without any real, understandable subject. Faces pass like clouded skies. Voices whip past his ears without being heard. 

 

And in the climax of it all, like a brilliant symphony brought to a high C above any other note played in the evening- the chord augments- and resolves. 

 

Lefou wakes. 

 

It is still night because there are stars above him. They loom, hanging tediously, moving gradually as the earth pulls itself forward and forward, forgetting the moments he had lived past. Would he one day forget Gaston? If he truly died, if Gaston was verily gone, would the sun and moon eat away at Lefou’s memory, burn it as a cooking fire might- in the way which water does not work and people are frantic in calming the flames? 

 

“No,” the voice that lifts Lefou from his slumber is drawn out like silk sheets stretched too far over a mattress, “You wouldn't forget him.”

 

It's as if the sun has risen, but it has not. It is as if morning has come, but it has not. Lefou shuts his eyes, throws his arm across his face to protect himself from the sudden brightness. 

 

It is the same woman from earlier, the one that started everything. She stands in front of him, golden hair gracing her shoulders, iridescent in nature and in spirit. Not four meters away, she looks down at Lefou as he sits up, rubs his eyes, and tries to collect himself from the bleariness of sleep. 

 

“Love is binding,” she says, “and like a scar it never fades.”

 

The Enchantress looks up, bringing her light with her gaze. It pushes Lefou down to the ground again. 

 

“Love and hate are not so different, you know. It is a thin line to be crossed, kindred in spirit and like-minded in essence.

 

“One crosses back and forth like a fickle child between the choice of cake or ice cream. You cannot truly hate someone you never loved. Love is never strengthened without having overcome the bitterness of anger. 

 

“While you may say you hate Gaston, I know you, Lefou. I know you, Lafayette. 

 

“And I know the truth.”

 

Lefou is stricken as if by the blunt end of a sword handle across the cheek. He can't find his words, nor can he find it in him to understand what she’s saying. One day, he will be able to recall this encounter in perfect detail, remember each blade of grass that touches his face and how the dirt was damp and cold under his thin, ruffled shirt. But now, the moment passes as if he were witnessing it as a deaf man in the audience of a play. 

 

The Enchantress says, “You are well within your rights to avoid him. It is understandable. No one would look down upon you if you never want to see him again. 

 

“But know that his heart has started to change. 

 

“He was blinded by his beauty,”  _ she raises her hands in a delicate motion, and from her fingertips comes magic that portrays a face that looks like Gaston used to, before he became the Creature.  _ “And he never would have been able to recognize his wrong nature had he not been changed. 

 

“Adam was like him. He could not change his own heart without seeing the personification of who he was on the outside. It is the essence of vanity and arrogance. The more arrogant you become, the less you are able to see.”

 

_ The Enchantress pulls her wrist down, and the gold magic swirls into a younger face, a child, and the child jumps and runs around Lefou’s head.  _

 

“As a child Gaston was praised for all he did correct, and severely punished for what he did wrong. For each fish caught, he would receive cheers; and for each failed attempt he was thrown down, the fishing pole ripped from his hands.”

 

_ The magic portrays her words, and a taller figure takes the pole from the child, raises it above his shoulder, and hits the child with it. One, quick motion. The fishing pole is thrown by the child’s side, discarded without thought or reason, and the child brings his knees to his chest in sorrow.  _

 

“Gaston soon learned to be the best of everyone’s expectations.”

 

_ The magic moves again, and the child becomes a teenager, standing with feet shoulders width apart, hands on his hips.  _

 

“He was praised for being the fastest boy in town. For being the strongest. For eating the most. For drinking the most.

 

“But each day he went home, his parents began to look past him. The more he accomplished, he less they cared.”

 

_ Flicking her wrist, the magic becomes a mother and a father turned away from a teenager. The teenager looks up, and the mother and father walk away from him.  _

 

“As a substitute for his parent’s attention, he turned to others. One wrong look felt like motherly disappointment. One misstep felt like fatherly rage.  He learned what people liked, and fitted himself to it. He built himself off of their praise, fueled by their misdirected admiration. 

 

“Gaston is the gasoline, and the villagers were the fire. Whatever Gaston believed would earn him praise, he accomplished and more. When the villagers expressed fear, he assumed the role of what he believed was the hero. It spiralled out of control.

 

“He built himself off of their praise, was fueled by their misdirected admiration. 

 

“He joined the army.

 

“He met you.”

 

The magic falls apart. Lefou expects it to fall onto his chest, feel like sand or stone, but it doesn't. It disappears like a lightning bug in the night. 

 

The Enchantress kneels by Lefou’s side. Her robe is green like the trees of the land, and it rests atop the soil without becoming dirty.She touches his shoulder, and it feels like the world has stopped. It is a touch softer than velvet, gentler than a kiss. Is she a deity? The daughter of God? Where does her power come from? 

 

“I'm telling you what he will never say,” she says in a whisper. “He believes that's how love works: with disregard and lack of attention. It's all he’s been given. 

 

“It is not your burden to teach him love, but it is something that may happen if you choose. 

 

“The choice is yours. Leave him, or help him. ”

 

The Enchantress stands, and with her back turned to him, Lefou is cast into darkness again. The sun, though, peeks above the horizon. It is not yet dawn, but it will be soon. 

 

She appears as if she may walk away, but she doesn't. She turns her head slightly toward Lefou once more. 

 

“He is here,” she says, “Gaston. He has been trailing you to make sure you don't get hurt.”

 

With those words, she disappears. 

 

Lefou starts abruptly. Birds start chirping in the dawn of a new day. The sun is rising now, as if in time with the Enchantress’ leaving. It seems everything she does is in perfect time. 

 

Lefou stands up. His head hurts with the weight of everything that has just happened. 

 

Looking around, he cannot see anyone. 

 

“Gaston?” His voice is a hoarse whisper, dry, so he says louder: “Gaston.”

 

After a moment, the Creature steps from behind the shade of trees. He stands without looking directly at Lefou, hands fidgety and restless. 

 

Lefou takes a breath. 

 

“You've been here the whole time.” It is a statement, not a question. 

 

Gaston nods, says, “Yes.” 

  
His voice is booming. It does not rattle or quake; it hasn't since the words _I'm sorry_ were spilled through the rain and the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos vERY WELL LOVED (also im @clingylefou on tumblr)


	7. Chapter 7

What do you do when everything you’ve ever known has been stripped of value?

 

Lefou looks at Gaston and sees a creature that one day might have had worth. He sees someone he used to look forward to, both as a human and as an animal. He remembers nights where he couldn’t sleep want wandered to find him. He remembers dreams where Gaston never left him.

 

But those are dreams and dreams alone. Today, Lefou holds his jaw tight and heart tighter. He doesn’t know how to feel. His heart is heavy. Not like a bag of sand is heavy, but heavy like a block of cement is heavy; heavy like cement because it scrapes your hands as you try to carry it. It beats unfortunately and insistently. And Gaston stands there at Lefou’s mercy, waiting for directions. It’s so backwards that Lefou wants to laugh.  

 

And he does.

 

Softly, in a sense of self deprecation, and to himself. 

 

Lefou turns around and continues walking. It’s admissible that Lefou would like to say part of himself wants to confront Gaston, but that isn’t true. Every single inch of Lefou’s skin, every hair on his head, every thread in his clothes that cling to his body- Every bit of him wants to ignore the fact that Gaston never died. It’s like an inadequate analogy. Lefou only has room in his heart for a single heartbreak, and that heartbreak was used up entirely when Gaston died. If he’s alive, there’s only room to be hurt again. Lefou can’t take that possibility.

 

So instead of walks. He listens to the distant echoes of Gaston stepping behind him, and he walks. He sees the sun rising as the day drags forward, and he walks. He breathes, and he walks. He walks because it’s all that he knows.

 

Throughout the forests they will meet three challenges of character set in motion by the Enchantress, all of which Gaston will pass, each one higher than the next. And with each successful challenge, Gaston’s scales will flake from his body. He will become more human. With each trespass, each action that betrays goodness, scales will grow on his skin once more. With time, the Enchantress will show them the path back to the village.

 

And throughout the venture, Lefou’s heart begins to soften again. He remembers why he loved Gaston in the first place: not because of his goodness, but because of his efforts to be seen as good. And as Gaston learns more about what it is to be a good person, he changes, and his skin changes with him.

 

By the edges of the forest, they speak in low voices just as the night falls upon them.

 

Gaston lies there: quiet and thoughtful. Lefou watches him all the while. Gaston’s are littered with stray scales. His face is scarred skin. His hands tap together, folding and unfolding, wringing and fiddling. Lefou moves to say something- then stops. He doesn’t know what he wants to say.

 

There is probably only four hours left of walking until they’ve reached the town again. Soon Lefou can go home.

 

But what will happen with Gaston? Will he turn around and disappear again? 

 

Gaston turns around, and Lefou takes in a breath. Gaston’s broken wings have rescinded into the skin since the last challenge, but on his back remains dark blotches of discoloration.

 

And then, all of Lefou’s failed attempts at starting conversation lifts.

 

He says, “Does it hurt?” 

 

His voice sounds frail to his own ears. He wonder what Gaston thinks he sounds like, if Gaston thinks he sounds weak or helpless or wrong. 

 

Gaston turns around, and Lefou can see his face again. The sight tugs at Lefou’s heart.

 

“Yeah,” he says. His voice is hoarse. 

 

They don’t say anything else for a good amount of time. Enough time for the stars to whisper among themselves and ask what those two men are waiting for, ever edging towards something that isn’t quite friendship. Because they were always friend, but in spirit, they were something else. They were intimate and ways Lefou can’t tell. They were whispers and laughter and silence. They were an unsaved video game where they reached the ending, lovers that were never quite lovers.

 

“I’m sorry,” Gaston says abruptly. “For everything.”

 

Lefou’s too tired to be angry for anything Gaston did, and even if he weren’t, anger is a second-hand emotion. He is angry because he is sad, and sad because he is hurt. Grudges only get heavier the more you hold on, gain weight the longer time goes by, grow rougher each night. Lefou has a soft heart. He doesn’t have the makings for an angry man.

 

Lefou reaches across the grass and touches Gaston’s hand. It’s homely.

 

“I know,” he says, voice barely a whisper. “I think I forgive you.”

 

Lefou turns his head. Gaston is smiling. 

 

“Do you think that one day, with proper time, you might…” Gaston pauses. Lefou holds his breath. A thousand phrases finish the sentence in the air by the time Gaston verbalizes it: “take me as your friend again?”

 

Lefou’s heart sinks, though he may never admit it. He wills himself to smile. 

 

“Yeah,” he says softly. “We’re friends now, aren’t we?”

 

Lefou doesn’t think any force in the universe could rip them apart, for even though Gaston’s betrayal Lefou never stopped loving him. That’s what made the betrayal so painful. Even while Lefou shouted and screamed and left, he loved Gaston. Hatred is not the opposite of love. Indifference is. Lefou has never been impartial to Gaston. He’s always loved him. Always. Since he was younger than he should have been to understand love.

 

Gaston grins. “Good,” he says. “I’m happy for that.”

 

Lefou nod with something stuck in his throat. Is this all they will ever be? Friends? Will Gaston find another woman to marry, and Lefou waste away beside him?

 

“Are you happy for that?” Gaston asks.

 

Lefou considers it, heavy heart and all.

 

Gaston turns towards him. “I want you to be happy,” he confides. “I’ve realized lately, that it’s all that I want.”

 

It’s that thing Gaston’s started doing. Being honest. Lefou can’t decide if he likes it or not. On one hand, it’s an honorable characteristic; but it isn’t characteristic of Gaston. It’s new, and at every turn does humanity resist change.

 

Lefou blurts, “You’re going to get married.”

 

Gaston sits up on one arm, confused.

 

“I mean--” Lefou stops himself. “I just--”

 

He can’t find his words.

 

“I don’t want to marry Belle,” Gaston says, and the words are cold and hot a the same time. They burn Lefou and give him frostbite. It’s wrong, those syllables together, on Gaston’s tongue; and Lefou has never been happier to hear them. “I think I never did. Not really.”

 

Lefou holds his breath. He stares wordlessly at Gaston’s beautiful face. Beautiful with its scars and blemishes and sharp edges.

 

“I think I just wanted to be  _ picture perfect, _ you know?” Gaston laughs to himself. “I never loved her, I never felt anything for her, not nearly as I feel for you.”

 

But what was that supposed to mean? 

 

“I think that means,” Gaston says in his perfect, mind-reading way, “I want you in the way I said I might have wanted Belle.”

 

 

 

 

 

Lefou fights the impulse to cry. It’s stupid, because it’s all he’s ever wanted to hear. And he loves every second of it. He loves every word that comes from Gaston’s mouth. He loves Gaston.

 

 

 

 

“So,” Gaston inches closer. “If you’ll have me, I want to be your closest friend and life partner.”

 

 

Lefou is silent. His chest thunders and quakes. His eyes are wet. 

 

 

“I don’t want Belle. I don’t want a woman. I don’t want anyone that isn’t you.”

 

Gaston touches his cheek, and Lefou lunges forward. They embrace, and Lefou buries his face in the crook of Gaston’s neck. His hands tighten in the back of Gaston’s shirt. And for a moment.  _ Everything _ . Feels right.

 

It rains, softly and uninterrupting. 

 

They kiss.


	8. Chapter 8

Soon the day comes, and they wake in each other’s arms, tangled like lovers.

 

 

 

 

They take an extra day to be with each other,

 

and in the morning,

 

they face the world together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaaaaaand that's all folks
> 
> i'm sooooo sorry for how long these last chapters took to upload, i happened to lose inspiration for this story which explains the quick ending, thanks for sticking around though!!! Hopefully one day I'm going to go back through everything and rewrite some parts which I feel could be stronger, but for now this is it.
> 
> I'm currently working on another gafou fic for the gift exchange thingy, so I'm not done writing for Gafou don't worry! Suggestions, comments, criticism is more than welcome <3
> 
> Come find me on tumblr at @cinqerella (yes i changed my url lol)


End file.
